


i am the sick boy

by inkyslumber



Series: fill my lungs with sweetness [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: American Sign Language, Angst, Deaf Clint Barton, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Requited Love, Requited Unrequited Love, hawkhawks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 17:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19950211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyslumber/pseuds/inkyslumber
Summary: The last time that he had heard about the phenomena, Clint had caught Phil with a lighter and a pile of petals. He remembered how adamant he'd been about not telling Nick. How he swore he'd "get over it", and the musician that had stolen his heart would be safe.Clint hadn't realized how lucky Phil had been to have her return his feelings.





	1. gloxinia

No one told him that the A Team had brought another hero with them.

Clint found out in the middle of an operation, HYDRA responsible for his compromised position. Barricaded on the roof, he had expected Tony or Sam to spearhead his extraction. Honestly, the man had been lucky to leave without an arrow lodged in one of his wings. His bright red feathers had given him away as a popular foreign hero, however, and Clint had reangled his shot and taken out another enemy agent.

His first impression of Ashitaka had been the exhilaration of flight. Remarkable aerial maneuvers, ones that Clint only dreamed of doing in a quinjet. He had flashed his signature grin and spouted off some nonsense about “flightless birds” before he had picked him up bridal style. If Clint hadn’t been so taken with him, he probably would have rolled himself right out of Ashitaka’s arms out of pride. Under Bruce’s watchful eye, he had coughed up the first sign of his problem.

“Gloxinia petals,” Natasha had said, a purple and white petal between her fingers, “for love at first sight.”

Clint had been all too ready to argue with her. His lungs had disagreed. He’d caught every petal he could, and his throat crawled from irritation.

“And pride,” she added, a touch softer.

His handful of petals spoke for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * i've given hawks the name "takaki ashitaka", because the man needs a name!!
> 
> ** the a team is aizawa's class a (minus mineta, plus shinsou)!! they're part of a larger fic.


	2. yellow tulip

Gloxinia petals were large, but Clint had managed well enough and kept them hidden. He ignored Bruce and Natasha’s knowledgeable looks, Thor and Steve’s concern, and Tony’s general nosiness. Hanahaki, he had found out, was not common. Clint bargained time off for his “cold”. If anyone had suspected he had lied, they hadn’t said so. Shouto suggested cold soba, and Katsuki had nearly destroyed the tablet in his hands when he’d heard. By evening that day, Clint had been presented with “appropriate” food recipes that were hot, and better for sore throats.

It was no wonder that Katsuki was one of the A Team’s leaders.

Clint had work to do, though. So he relied on the hot meals to soothe his irritated throat, and tried to recall what Phil had told him about the disease. He was usurped by Natasha on his decision to return to the field, and it took him a week to prove that he was “well enough” to be back on the team. So long as he avoided Ashitaka - both literally and emotionally - his lungs seemed to cease their unnecessary growth. Wildly unnecessary, if Clint had a say. But Ashitaka was fast, and Clint was decidedly _not_. Years of training had gone down the drain.

The first time he was on the direct end of one of Ashitaka’s more sincere grins, Clint felt it when his heart dropped out of his chest. Something tickled his lungs, and he sat in silence until he could escape to the elevator. Once inside, he coughed until JARVIS offered to call for assistance. He tried to refuse, but the words wouldn’t come out.

“Clint,” Tony breathed. He sounded almost as out of breath as Clint was.

Silent, he glared at the yellow petals that littered the floor of the elevator. Dispersed among them were the familiar purple and white. Couldn’t he at least cough up something smaller? Less bright? He had just gotten the gloxinias under control, and now he had to deal with these, too.

“Yellow tulips? Really?”

He didn’t answer him, and instead crushed a few under his feet. When Tony spoke again, Clint ignored him. He had half a mind to take his hearing aids out.

“Sunshine in your smile.” JARVIS supplied helpfully.

Clint couldn’t avoid that smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't normally tag all characters that appear in a fic, but they're relevant enough? i hope??  
> anyway [strums guitar] here's ~~wonderwall~~ more pain


	3. daffodil

The disease had been enough for him to know. Apparently, the universe had missed the memo. Clint swallowed back petals with a vengeance.

Across the gym, he saw how Ashitaka flirted with Sam, all bright smiles and radiance. With a mouthful of gatorade, Clint forced himself to look away. Ashitaka’s laughter echoed against high ceilings and melded with Sam’s own. Clint removed his hearing aids, and motioned for a chance on the mat. Hitoshi moved to step off and let him spar with Natasha, but he shook his head. He fisted his hands, and crossed his arms in front of his chest twice from the bottom up.

Hitoshi grinned.

Once Clint was in the ring, Hitoshi held his hands diagonally to one another with middle fingers level. He emphasized the position, and then shook his head and pinched two fingers on one hand together with his thumb. So that’s how it was.

Clint touched the fingertips of one hand to his forehead with a smile of his own, and positioned his feet. He mimicked Hitoshi’s initial statement and was rewarded with a silent laugh.

There was something cathartic about a good, physical fight. Hitoshi had been trained well, and in the time that he’d known the A Team, was easily one of his favorite kids. Ochako was probably his other favorite, and he’d added the pair to his “kid collection” as Kate had called it. A real dad at heart, or something. Sure, they were in their twenties, but he was in his thirties. He could totally adopt them. Clint dodged a hook to his right ear, and pulled himself back to the fight. Couldn’t adopt anyone if Hitoshi knocked him out.

He’d be so embarrassed if he got knocked out in front of Ashitaka.

The itch returned to his lungs, and Clint stifled a cough. He swept Hitoshi’s feet out from under him, and jumped to avoid a grab at his ankles. The rush of air from his lungs when he landed back on his feet betrayed him, and a different type of yellow petals flew out.

Hitoshi, though shocked, caught them. He put that fist over his chest in a circular motion.

Stilted, Clint formed a “Y” and motioned between himself and Hitoshi with it. He couldn’t help but look at Ashitaka to be sure he hadn’t seen, and when he saw that he was still wrapped in a conversation at the bars with Sam, his throat crawled. Clint cleared his throat and looked back at Hitoshi. He looked so understanding, and Clint wondered for the first time if this was more common than he’d been lead to believe.

Hitoshi crossed his arms in front of his chest, a different motion than Clint had used before. He formed small “O”s with his hands - Clint’s daffodil petals had vanished - and moved them outwards with a shake of his head. It was almost unbearable.

Clint held up open hands and twisted them in towards himself several times. He knew what the petals were, and what they meant. Unrequited love. Ashitaka flirted with everyone. Clint wasn’t special, and he had no expectation to be. His lungs itched fiercer. When he fled the gym, it was with petals passed in a handshake, and a resolve to call Phil.

He just needed to stop his cough long enough to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i told romeo and apollo that these were going to be short chapters. y'know, like a liar. they keep getting longer owo"  
> similarly, i told myself i wouldn't post these chapters all at once. so instead i post them as i finish them?? who needs pacing.


	4. spider flower

He noticed how Ashitaka flirted with most of the tower after that. How he made Sam smile, and Rhodey laugh. How Steve would sketch him out, only to be flashed a cocky smile when he’d think he could sneak away unnoticed. Clint witnessed when Pepper told him over Tony, and watched Ochako leave Ashitaka on the ceiling when he went too far with Natasha. Bruce had shut him down the quickest. A quick utterance of, “I’m married,” and pickup lines had been forgotten. That had been the best day; Ashitaka seemed to love the drama of a secret marriage just as much as anyone else in the tower.

Clint took time off to visit Phil and his small team upstate, and with so few people present, let his guard down. Daisy found him in the lab, much like he’d found Phil all those years ago. Ready to burn a handful of petals in a questionable incinerator. He really hoped it was an incinerator. Just the thought of a conversation with Phil had set off his garden in his lungs, and he’d been too embarrassed to not destroy the evidence first.

Since Clint wouldn’t go to Phil, Daisy brought Phil to Clint. She left them with a furrowed brow and a promise to only vaguely ask Jemma if anything could be done for him. Jemma was smart, though. Clint knew she’d connect the dots, and then he’d have Fitz-Simmons on his side instead. Phil’s team was far enough removed from the tower that he felt a little more secure in the thought of all of them knowing. He was stressed enough over the tower residents, after all.

Phil only asked him questions that required simple responses. Clint responded with sign language, and grimaced when a more violent fit of coughs wracked his body. Amidst a mist of blood, he found the source: a flower. A whole flower.

“Aw, _futz_ ,” he wheezed.

The spindly, bright red flower sat innocently in his palm.

“Clint.” Phil said, significantly paler.

The way he said his name was weighted, and Clint resisted the urge to crush the flower in his hand. There wasn’t a lot of blood, a much darker red compared to the flower, but it was enough to verify his recent pain. He swore under his breath and forced himself to look at Phil again.

“Well? What’s it this time?” He asked, voice rough.

Phil’s lips thinned. He didn’t know, then. Clint was saved the hassle of a computer by Jemma’s hurried entrance.

“Oh, a spider flower!” She exclaimed, drawn immediately to the red in his hand.

He cleared his throat.

“You want to elope with them?” Jemma asked. She sounded surprised.

Clint frowned, and crushed the flower in his hand. He’d expected something that meant “jealousy” this time. Or disinterest. Heartbreak? Clint hadn’t studied the language of flowers. It was archaic at best. Given the pattern, he hoped a whole daffodil wasn’t next. Even worse would be a new flower; he’d been unable to find a pattern in what caused new flowers to grow in his lungs. He hoped Jemma - or even Fitz-Simmons - had some answers.

“Apparently. Not like he’s the marriage type.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you ever get sympathy throat pains for characters with hanahaki disease?? ouch.  
> hope y'all are ready, because we're in the home stretch now!


	5. striped carnation

It was the worst when he spoke with Ashitaka. The man flirted relentlessly, and while Clint responded in kind, it wasn’t enough to hold his attention. He watched how he flitted from person to person, like a hummingbird from flower to flower.

Clint _hated_ flowers.

Every smile his way, every moment spent together, and Clint found it harder to breathe. He’d made it several months like that now. Clint opted to not put himself on missions as much anymore and instead spend more time in the labs with Tony and Bruce. Fitz-Simmons had no answers for how to clear the garden from his chest, and Phil had shot down the idea of a confession to Ashitaka. There was no guarantee that being turned down would remove the flowers and not kill him. Natasha had suggested a surgery to remove them, and Jemma had refused. His x-rays, apparently, were not promising.

So he spent his days in Bed-Stuy with Kate and Lucky, or on rooftops with Natasha. He sparred with Hitoshi and Ochako, taught the latter how to shoot a bow and arrow, and indulged the former in conversation. Steve tried to corner him on his health, and Clint had used Pepper’s sympathy to escape. Tony, it seemed, couldn’t keep a secret from her. For once, he didn’t mind. He would die either way, so what was one more person that knew? So long as it wasn’t Ashitaka - or someone that would tell him - the whole tower could know and it wouldn’t change a thing.

Ashitaka was a show-off, and Clint should have known that a walk around Manhattan wouldn’t be a quiet affair. He had just recovered his wings, bright crimson feathers his most iconic feature as a hero, and Clint felt he had really just wanted to flaunt them around the city. Still, he had agreed to walk him around the borough and show him the best places to eat. Most of them were pizzerias that waved as they walked by, and a few were quieter takeout places that knew Natasha and Bruce more than the knew him. He paid for their coffee and politely ignored that Ashitaka stopped an extra fifteen minutes just to sign autographs.

“Is that your boyfriend?” One of his fans asked.

Ashitaka looked over at him, where he patiently stood with their coffees.

“No!” He laughed and winked at Clint. “Why would he be?”

Clint took a shot of his scalding hot coffee and pretended not to care. When Ashitaka laughed, it was the best sound he’d heard all day. His attention was back on his fans in under a minute. In the lapse of attention, Clint pulled a petal from his mouth and washed the rest of the flower down with a grimace. He snapped a picture of it on his phone and hesitated. Who would know this one? He tapped Phil’s name with trepidation.

    > Striped carnation. Rejection.  
(. . .)  
> Clint?

He sent a quick thumbs-up emoji to Phil and shoved his phone in his pocket. Ashitaka was done, and he drank a bit of his coffee in retaliation for the wait before he handed it over. He had long since finished his own coffee, a foolish attempt to drown the flowers again. They crawled up his airways with a vengeance after Ashitaka’s earlier joke. So if he glared at a florist shop when they passed, it wasn’t personal.

Clint never wanted to see another flower in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still channeling my "y'know, like a liar" mood because now there's 7 chapters instead of 6  
> it is. so hard to not give this a happy end. but i must commit!! we all suffer now!!


	6. cyclamen

Clint didn’t last much longer.

He decided to leave most everything to Kate, Lucky included, and the rest to Natasha. Phil helped him settle his affairs quietly, and Tony promised to keep an eye on Kate and keep her safe. Five flowers had been enough, and when the sixth had come up in the bathroom sink, Jemma had given him a scant few months to live. Tops. The plants that had woven through his lungs had crawled up through his throat and if he had thought that his x-rays were bad before, they were nothing compared to what they had become. Clint struggled to breathe well most days, airways tight and throat irritated. It was a bicolor cyclamen - red and white - that had sealed his fate.

Cyclamen was poisonous. A toxic plant that had grown in his body, invaded his airways and absorbed into his system. If not for this one, would he have lived longer? Would Fitz-Simmons have found a cure? He wasn’t sure anymore.

Clint was so, so tired.

“So this is it, then?” Ashitaka asked, voice unnaturally soft.

He looked so uncomfortable beside Clint, who had shot arrow after arrow into a target that had seen better days. Clint had requested that the only thing anyone knew was that he had a terminal disease; no details. Ashitaka had never looked so worn down, and guilt weighed heavy on him that he was responsible for that.

“Yeah. Ran out of time.”

Clint released another arrow.

“I,” he began. He sighed, as though he had reconsidered what he’d wanted to say. “There’s nothing?”

“This is goodbye. I’m going to visit my brother, it’ll be easier on the kids.”

Ashitaka stood from the wall, and approached Clint.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he murmured.

He placed his hand over Clint’s and squeezed. Clint let himself relax under his touch and sighed. He could imagine, just for a moment, that Ashitaka loved him back.

And then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think i've hurt myself more with this than i've hurt anyone else??  
> shoutout to the tiny b team discord for coming along with me on this ride!!


	7. purple hyacinth

Clint’s funeral was a somber affair.

Ashitaka threw himself into the preparations and picked up the slack whenever the Avengers got overwhelmed. He helped Pepper run interference with the media, took memorabilia to Barney on Kate’s behalf, and babysat Lucky. Sometimes, he felt like some of the other heroes in the tower made a point to avoid him. Ashitaka ignored them and carried on. He moved to Bed-Stuy, and watched over Clint’s apartment building.

The day of the funeral, Ashitaka planted purple hyacinth on a rooftop garden that Kate had started. When he got back, eyes dry and eyeliner immaculate, he heaved into his kitchen sink. Purple coated the stainless steel, and he grimaced as he ran the garbage disposal.

Damn it all.

He should have said something before. The stalks had climbed up his airway into his throat, choked him out, and his last chance at the range had gone to waste. Clint was dead, and Ashitaka knew he would be next. Maybe next time, they would get it right. He would swallow his fear and look Clint in the eye, and every flirtatious word that left his mouth would be directed at the person it was meant for. He wouldn’t hide behind his famous persona. They would get a house in the middle of nowhere, nothing but fields for miles.

Clint could rescue dogs, and Ashitaka would pretend to be bothered by it. They’d have a big farmhouse, with space for all of those kids Clint took under his wing. Ashitaka would complain and underneath all of his bluster, match each kid up with a dog that fits them best. They would train the kids to fend for themselves, all while they made sure that they never had to.

Ashitaka dumped a mason jar of flowers and petals into the kitchen sink, and flipped the garbage disposal on again. With the running water, the hyacinth shredded easily. It was almost cathartic to watch.

Next time, the only purple that he wanted to see was that stupid hoodie Clint loved to wear so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now, i perish!! thanks for suffering with me!!!
> 
> \- - -
> 
> we have a server for the overall crossover, and for hawkhawks!! come visit us!  
> [here we are!](https://discord.gg/CqtcXQM)


End file.
